The BrikWars Forums

The Magic SOB forum is for posts of story sequences that are frequently vignette-based. Put those here while actual battle reports can go in Reports From the Field.You must talk like James T. Kirk in this forum at all times. Leonard Nimoy is fine too.

The short version is that the Immortal Alliance attacked the Neo-Prussian Empire and one Immortal unleashed the Peach Virus when the defenses proved too tough. Sir Bragallot escaped the planet but his current location / fate is unknown.

Wolffe and Wallis headed straight for the airport. Apparently, the Brittanian task force was already ready to leave.

"I'd better hope these new recruits you dug up are up for the task, Wallis, 'cos we're going to be plunging them right into the thick of it, with little time to prepare. I want to know I can trust the Wolf that's guarding my back" Wolffe murmured. He had second thoughts about tackling this mission with an inexperienced crew, but even he had to admit they could use all the backup they could get.

"Ah, you worry too damn much, Lt. I found them myself!" Wallis boasted.

Nathaniel scoffed. "Where? In a Kindergarten?"

"That's harsh, Lt. One, Leza, she's called, was a prisoner in a VoL convoy, but I freed her. That girl owes me her life, there's nothing she won't do for me."

"Charming. Any others?"

"Yes, one. Lucas. He's a rich kid, at least, he was, until the Immortals creamed his family. Your estate getting overrun by zombies isn't exactly beneficial to your stock worth. Anyway, he tried to run for Wolf, but only just failed his tests. He could've served in the regular military, but he chose to become a freelancer instead. Not the most honorable thing to do, but at least he's ambitious. Kid's got some skills."

"So you got me a former prisoner and a drop-out. I better hope you left someone to blow their nose for them."

"I left them with the best. Bane's watching over them."

Of course. Bane. Who else Wolffe thought. Wherever Wallis was, Bane couldn't be far. The only reason he hadn't thought about her before was because he'd done so much to expel that woman from his mind already.

Near the Brittanian hangar bay, a couple of Wolves were hanging out. One of them spotted Wolffe and Wallis heading their way.

Bane: "Look who's returned from vacation!"

Leza: "Is that your vaunted lieutenant?"

Bane: "That's the one. Tricks, both of you better line up to make that first impression, 'cos once you screw it up with the Lt., there's no going back."

Bane: "Hail lieutenant Wolffe!"

"Hail!"

Wolffe shook his head. Soldiers hadn't saluted him in what felt like ages, but Bane acted as if it had only been yesterday since they had last seen each other.

"At ease, wolves" he said, and the new recruits visibly relaxed. "Bane" he acknowledged his corporal with a slow nod before looking at the new recruits. "And I take it you are Leza and Lucas?"

"Yes, sir!"

"This is to you new recruits. If you enter Alpha Squad, there's a few rules to live by."

"All right, listen up, and listen good!" Bane shouted.

"First rule. None of you are expendable. Your first task is to stay alive. If you want to be a hero, you're on the wrong team. You follow my orders. In the absence of orders, you listen to Sergeant Wallis, and if he's not around, you listen to corporal Bane. If you think you have a better idea, that's fine, just keep it to yourself, I don't want to hear it. In war, there are no buts, no ifs, and no half measures. In Alpha Squad, we don't growl. We bite. Whatever you do, you commit to it. Else, you die. Do you get me?" Wolffe said, the words rolling out exactly as he'd spoken them the last time his squad had received new recruits, like he'd never left the military.

"We get you sir!"

"Ah, the nostalgia. I hadn't heard that talk in a long time" Bane smiled.

"And I hope you won't have to hear it again, either. This time, I intend to keep my squad together" Wolffe growled. He had serious doubts about these new recruits, but he promised himself he'd keep them alive regardless.

Wallis had heard Wolffe's talk more times than anyone still alive, and had been inspecting the weapons instead. Now he walked up to Wolffe, shoving a machine laser into his hands.

Wallis: "Ah, holding one of these never gets old. Don't these just make you wish the war was still going on? Fresh from the factory. I think I'm in love."

"The war is still going on... just in a different way" Wolffe, daunted by the weight of the Zerreiser, said. He didn't recall the machine lasers being this heavy.

"I agree... and I think I've just spotted something I'd like to test 'em out on" Bane whispered.

The sound of marching feet announced the approach of the Brittanian taskforce. The adrenaline in Nathaniel's body started pumping at the sight of those uniforms. The battles they'd fought against the Immortal Alliance passed before his eyes. The mind could be kept under control and adjusted to the situation, but the body never lied.

An Immortal! he thought as the leader, flanked by a Terrorkhan, approached him. Damn you, Wallis, how could you keep this back from me?

"What a small pack of Wolves" the Immortal lady mused, her voice muffled by her mask. "Are you the alpha male?"

It was a jab, but Nathaniel nevertheless grinned. This Immortal couldn't know, but 'Alpha' was the nickname his troopers had given him, a long time ago.

"I am Lieutenant Wolffe. I didn't expect Immortal involvement in this operation" he said calmly, not about to let himself be provoked.

"The Brittanians are our subjects, and we take great interest in this endeavor. The resources we're set to mine belong to the Immortal Empire, by right of conquest. Are all of your men accounted for, commander?"

"Yes. Are these all of yours? This is a very small force. You had more men with you when you invaded my home planet."

A Brittanian commando whom Wolffe suspected to be a lieutenant burst from the Brittanian ranks at that remark.

"What did you expect, the Imperial Guard? The League's resources are spread thinly, lieutenant, but I assure you, my men will be sufficient."

The Immortal seemed to ignore her subordinate.

"I was nowhere near that invasion. I assure you, if I had been, use of the Peach Virus wouldn't have even been necessary" she shrugged.

"..." Wolffe had trouble holding his tongue.

"Enough talk. Let's move, ladies" Wolffe said, hoping his 'employers' weren't able to perceive the reason for his haste. When the Immortal looked at him, it felt like her eyes were looking straight into his soul.

Last edited by Bragallot on Thu Feb 21, 2013 8:37 pm, edited 6 times in total.

They'd been under attack for weeks now. The area in front of the base was slick with blood and littered with bones, but nevertheless wave after wave of undead and Inquistadores kept descending on the base. Private Ralph Misch couldn't remember the last time he'd had sleep. Even despite the screams of the dying and wounded and the rattling of the guns, he almost fell asleep at his post. Even adrenaline couldn't keep him awake for much longer. He was able to do little more than squeeze the trigger on his Zerreiser and lean forward onto the wall that protected him.

The message... someone must have heard... the message... he kept thinking over and over as the skeletal and armoured shapes kept creeping closer and closer.

This was the end. They'd been fighting so much, they were almost out of ammo. The enemy had never gotten this close to the base.

"If only someone could reactivate that damn turret!" he heard the harsh voice of Angel, a fellow trooper, cry out.

As if on command, the defense turret suddenly activated, the guns automatically finding their targets and immediately opening fire, tearing through the closest Inquistadores and skeletons with ease.

Suddenly the enemy was under fire from every direction. Large shells blasted into the Inquistadores from behind. Ralph thought he was delusional. He must have been, because this couldn't possibly be happening.

"Como?"

*splut*

"I'm happy you didn't make me afraid of heights, miss!"

"Let's have ourselves some fun, ja?"

The sound of the guns was nothing compared to the hell the Gheistschlag unleashed on their foes. Systems blazing, it took out skeletons and Inquistadores alike, blowing them away like snow in the wind.

"Hold your fire! Let the gunship handle it!"

Ralph heard his acting officer, the medic Necro, to who he owed his life, shout. When he let go of the trigger, he felt a cramp shoot up his finger.

The Inquistadores knew they had nowhere to go and were making their final stand, but the Gheistschlag could handle them on her own.

Rather than blasting the final enemies to bits, the gunship slowly turned in midair, shrugging off the small arms fire effortlessly. As the energy shield defending the back opened, Ralph gasped at the sight of the Prussian commander that calmly walked out, and he wasn't the only one.

"Will you look at that. Just when I'd stopped believing in angels" Hierro, the Inquistadore deserter, remarked as the woman looked around slowly, seemingly oblivious to the enemy fire. It was almost like an invisible force field was keeping the Inquistadore's bullets from hitting her.

She suddenly leaped down, activating a duo of beamsabres, and deflecting every shot fired at her as she spiraled towards the ground at breakneck speed.

Amazingly, she didn't break her legs when she landed. The final skeleton was the first to go, falling prey to a vertical slash, but the Inquistadores, seeing the futility of their efforts, reached for their chainsaws.

"You've made the mistake of your life, puta!"

Ralph brought his Zerreiser up to take one of them out, but Necro's voice stopped him.

"Don't fire! You could kill her!"

"You had something to say?" Bragina remarked as she slashed through both heavy troopers with apparent ease. Compared to her, they moved like slugs.

The aftermath of the short, but violent fight left the squad stunned. As the Gheistschlag landed, it crushed the bodies of their defeated foes. No one even said a word until Bragina had reached them.

"Who... who are you? Did you get my message?" Ralph stammered, stunned by her appearance. Despite the fact the enemy was defeated, he still didn't feel safe. There was something about this woman... something threatening.

"Who I am is not so important right now" Bragina said quickly. "What I really want to know is why there are Inquistadores here, and more importantly, how they managed to ally with the undead."

"Valenza. It's him. He controls the undead" Ralph heard himself say.

"Archduke Valenza?!" Bragina exclaimed. "But he's dead! He died along with the rest of the Inquistadorial council. How could he be alive?!"

"I don't know, but he's still alive... well, sorta. We don't understand it either, but we can show you a message we received from him a while ago. Maybe it'll make more sense, then" Ralph said, wondering when exactly he had become the spokesperson of his squad.

"Fine. Show me this message" Bragina said, giving Helena a meaningful glance as she started following the wolves into the base. These troopers had spent too much time bereft of water, food, and hope, what they said couldn't possibly be true... could it?

When the screen was displayed Bragina stifled a gasp. It was Valenza, yet it wasn't. The sight of the Archduke's head kept in a jar and attached to some sort of life support device nearly made Bragina vomit, and she got even more disgusted when the head started talking.

"Cease your pitiful resistance, you so-called Wolves! This world, this planet, is mine. You believed you had killed me, but you hadn't, and now I will turn this planet you call home into a paradise of eternal darkness. No creature shall live, no plant shall grow, no sun shall shine. The life of this planet will be wholly consumed to feed my war machine, which will march across the Brikverse and kill all in its path, and none of you pitiful mortals, not even the Immortal Alliance, nor the Anti-Immortal or Third Alliance or even the remains of my own wretched kinsmen will be able to do anything about it! I shall personally-"

"Enough of that" Bragina said as she turned off the recorded transmission. She'd seen enough. "I need some fresh air" she announced as she walked outside.

Once outside, the fresh air made Bragina feel a little bit less sick, but her head was still spinning with the overload of new information she'd just received.

"Valenza couldn't have acted alone. He doesn't have access to this kind of technology, both the technology to keep himself alive as the technology required to control undead is simply beyond anything the Inquistadores have at their disposal! He's getting outside help... someone else set this up! But who...?"

"It sounds like something the Immortals would, and could do..." Ralph suggested.

"No" Bragina said, shaking her head. She narrowed her eyes as she pondered on something. "It's that scientist, Sir Bragallot's doing" she finally decided. "After all, it is he who sent 'Angelica' to destroy Valenza. No doubt this is his ploy to take complete control over New Prussia, by using Valenza as a puppet. Why else would he have simply vanished in thin air after this planet was overcome?"

The silence of the troopers told her this was far too complicated for them to comprehend, or perhaps they simply didn't care about anything but their survival at this point. No surprise there.

"Look, I am on my own, there is no larger rescue mission going on. I had a plan for exterminating the undead, but I didn't realize we'd be facing organized resistance. We need a ride off this planet, and return when we're more powerful, more organized. I will save this planet, but I won't throw away my own and your lives fighting a battle we can't win. Your only chance of survival is to follow me and help me get off this planet. Will you obey my commands?"

"To whichever end!" the rest of the troops repeated, saluting their new commander.

This story will be continued, but consider this the end of my Magic Soap Opera contest entry. I thought it was a fitting place to end part 1, and it's 23:20 here at the moment, so I wouldn't be able to add anything either way. Enjoy.

Last edited by Bragallot on Thu Feb 21, 2013 8:46 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Photography: 5/5. Minifigs: 4.5/5. The Prussian weaponry was awesome, but Archduke Valenza was kind of disappointing. It seems like there should be more to his life support system than just the jar.Writing: 5/5. Some excellent dialogue there. Title: 5/5.Overall appeal: 4.5/5Total score: 24/25.